The Rums of México have been on my radar for a while, mostly because of the overwhelming hype I see for them online. However, after trying several rums from Alambique Serrano and realizing that it's a mixed bag for me, I didn't want to rush and buy these bottles, and maybe wait to try a sample at some point. Well, that some point was this past weekend! This rum is made from sugarcane juice of the Caña Criolla variety and distilled on a four plate copper column still. Review Smell Very strong brine and grass. Very similar to a savory agricole like HSE blanc. Taste Very strong flavor of agricole, a bit peppery, and has a pretty distinct smoky note. It actually instantly reminded me of Clairin Le Rocher. It makes an awesome drink with papelón con limón. It's Smoky, fruity, and grassy, like a smoked 'ti punch. Very complex, very interesting to just hold in your mouth. A lot more flavors open up with a bit of dilution and lime. Verdict {rating}/10 Definitely my favorite of the bunch. As you know, I am not a huge fan of really savory, grassy rums, but this one really is quite good. It very much reminds me of a Haitian clairin, such as Le Rocher. Very strong flavor, very complex, and if you love clairins, I think you will love this rum. 7.5/10

I mean, this is the most obvious Kraken knockoff that I have seen so far. It's a Total Wine special and it's cheaper than the real thing, so let's see how it holds up. I've just been really busy lately so I am picking something up from the backlog. Expect better stuff soon! Review Smell Vanilla extract, caramel, buttered popcorn, sweet, and artificial. But it's heavily leaning towards vanilla. Kraken smells similar but much lighter on the vanilla. Taste I mean... it's harsh and unpleasant, as expected. Very heavy on vanilla and sweetness. A bit of caramel on the back. It's not great and definitely kind of fake tasting, but Kraken is somehow worse. Bitter spices, none of which I can really discern, and a syrupy medicinal sweetness. Both do not have very good base rums, but I can deal with a sweet vanilla bomb more than the concoction in Kraken. Of course, there is a 0% chance you buy these rums for anything but mixing with cola, so I tried them with Pepsi. Unsurprisingly, Jonah's Curse was also noticably better than Kraken in Pepsi. It makes like a vanilla caramel Pepsi and it's surprisingly drinkable. Kraken is also improved by being mixed in Pepsi, but it's still not a flavor that I prefer. Verdict {rating}/10 These rums are not really meant to be drunk neat, but I prefer Jonah's Curse over Kraken. Still, I vastly prefer Coruba, Myers's, Goslings, even Bacardi Black if I must have a black rum. Kraken is special to me, because it's the rum I drank during college, and I finished the last of it off for my first review. But now, Kraken is like an old friend that you met again for the first time in years, and you realize that they are actually a total loser. Jonah's Curse is not good, but it's better than Kraken.

I've reviewed several cachaças before, mostly ones I had as one-offs, but there is only one brand that I regularly see in liquor stores: Leblon. Sure, if I do some hunting, I can find Cachaça 51 or even Novo Fogo, but Leblon is the one that you just see everywhere. Review Smell Grassy, briny, slightly sweet. It smells extremely similar to my HSE martinique agricole blanc. No real fruit or funk, just smells like grass and brine. Taste Leblon tastes quite grassy and briny. However, I would say, it tastes very much like HSE, but HSE is both bolder in taste and also harsher in burn. Leblon is just weaker. Both really don't have much complexity. I made two... daiquiris? I guess I'd piss off two countries by not using their preferred term for the drink, but I combined Leblon and HSE with sugar and lime. Call it caipirinha and 'ti punch if you will. Anyway, as expected, the HSE was much stronger, but actually, in Leblon's lightness comes ease of drinking. If you really love the taste of cane juice, Leblon will leave you disappointed, but if you are like me and don't really prefer it, Leblon comes off as tolerable and more enjoyable. Verdict {rating}/10 I would still rather have Bacardi. That's just me, and I can recognize that agricole and cachaça have a following, but my opinions are mine, and I'd rather have a daiquiri with Bacardi. But it wasn't bad. I'm sure I would probably enjoy Novo Fogo more, just as I have enjoyed agricoles that are better quality than HSE. I haven't reviewed it yet, but WP 9th floor WPE-CJN is incredible. For now, Leblon is a 4/10.

Time to finish up Barceló. Sorry for skipping the last post. I was in Atlanta this past weekend and was very busy. Review Smell It's much lighter smelling than Barceló Imperial. It's less woody, and also has less red wine character than Brugal XV, which shares a similar position and price point. The primary scent is alcohol with a bit of vanilla. Taste Trying it neat, it's light and not bad. It's not too sweet, and there is a slight woodiness to it, and shares a similar profile to Bermudez and Brugal rums that is hard to describe, but I pretty much feel like I can recognize the Dominican terroir when I taste it. However, it's not as bold as Imperial, and in fact I would say that Gran Añejo tastes pretty much like a blander, harsher Imperial. In a daiquiri, I put it head to head with Brugal Añejo, Barceló Dorado, and Bacardi Gold. I would say that the harshness on all three is about equal, and totally managable in a daiquiri, but the Gran Añejo daiquiri just didn't have the flavor to back it up. Barceló Dorado and Bacardi Gold were better, and Brugal Añejo was my favorite. Of course, if you're in the Dominican Republic, the best daiquiri rum you can buy at the airport is Havana Club 3. Verdict {rating}/10 This rum faces the same crisis as Brugal XV. It's not that great as a sipper, and for just a few bucks more, you can get the next tier of rum which is far better for sipping. But for mixing, it's actually worse than its cheaper counterpart. It exists pretty much to fill the middle price point, and I don't see myself ever preferring this rum over the alternatives.

Another rum I had while in the Dominican Republic. I thought that this one was not by Oliver & Oliver, but, after doing some research following my initial note taking, it turns out that it's totally by Oliver & Oliver. Usually they like to slap their name on their bottles, but in this case, it's a celebrity rum for Enrique Iglesias. Oh boy, Oliver & Oliver AND finished in cognac AND a celebrity product. Review Also before I go into nosing or tasting, when I first got the rum, in a clear glass cup with no ice, I noticed that the rum is full of flocules. I guess it's unfiltered? Not really a problem for me, I just was curious why they didn't filter it. Smell Smells primarily of alcohol, with the faintest hint of sweetness and vanilla. Taste Primarily alcohol and pretty flavorless. It's not that harsh, and it's pretty easy sipping, especially with some ice. But it really doesn't have much flavor— even Puntacana Club XOX, which is a similar "25 year" solera, has at least a decently nice deep rich woody flavor. It has some faint notes of vanilla, sweetness, oak, and perhaps brown sugar. The finish is very short, but it's slightly floral similar to Puntacana Club XOX. Verdict {rating}/10 I pretty much feel the same way about this rum as I did with my previous review of Legado El Caballo Mayor, and most Oliver & Oliver rums. Sweet, flavorless, and not bad, but not really worth your time either.

Ok, I said that I was reviewing all of my Barceló rums now, but most of them are mixing rums. I actually ran out of limes, and I am NOT paying $3 for 4 tiny brown limes at the bodega. So I'll go buy some proper juicy 6 for $1 limes when I go to the grocery store soon. For now, let me do a weird one from the Dominican Republic. This is a celebrity rum for Johnny Ventura, a legend of Dominican Merengue. Art-is-anally hand crafted small batch ultra-premium collector's yadda yadda you get it. > Note: I am seeing lots of inconsistent "aged up to X years" claims, but the bottle has no age statement. Review Also before I go into nosing or tasting, when I first got the rum, in a clear glass cup with no ice, I noticed that the rum is full of flocules. I guess it's unfiltered? Not really a problem for me, I just was curious why they didn't filter it. Smell No smell. I put my nose into it until the tip touched the rum, and I couldn't smell it. Taste Sweet. A bit of burn. That's it. There's basically no flavor here, and if I really swish it around my mouth, I get the tiniest bit of rum taste. Verdict {rating}/10 It reminds me of Oliver & Oliver rums. Smooth, sweet, flavorless, and boring. I'd hate to call it worse than Bacardi, because it's so much less harsh for sipping neat, but it's just so flavorless, that I can't imagine picking this bottle up again. 4/10

Time to finish up Barceló. Going to have one more post after this, and then that will be basically their entire core lineup. Not sure if I want to go for all the different finishes for Imperial. Review Smell Surprisingly, still has some nice vanilla and oak smell, along with the prevailiang alcohol smell. Side by site with Bacardi gold, it smells about the same. Taste I was surprised after trying Blanco by how much less Dorado sucks. It has more oak and vanilla flavor, has a fuller body, and actually tastes like rum. It might be close to Brugal Añejo in flavor. Bacardi gold burns about the same, and the flavors are different, where Bacardi gold is more of that classic vanilla coconut rum flavor, while Barceló Dorado is noticably more dominican, and it's in the same flavor vein as Brugal and Bermudez. In a daiquiri, the trend continues. Makes a decent daiquiri, not much better than Bacardi gold, but the rums are just very different terroirs. Barceló Dorado just has more of an oaky floral note to it. Side by side with a Brugal Añejo daiquiri, the Brugal is noticably better, but the taste is very similar. The Barceló is just more watered down. Verdict {rating}/10 Barceló Blanco was a real disappointment. Flavorless and sweet. Barceló Dorado came out a bit ahead. Not by much, we're still talking about mixers here, and just as Brugal Añejo falls short of Havana Club 3 for mixed drinks, so too does Barceló Dorado fall short of Brugal Añejo. It's a judgement call in terms of whether it's better than Bacardi gold.

Time to finish up Barceló. Going to have one more post after this, and then that will be basically their entire core lineup. Not sure if I want to go for all the different finishes for Imperial. Review Smell Smells like alcohol and nothing else. Taste It's pretty flavorless and noticably sweet. There's a tiny hint of vanilla, but not as much as the bolder vanilla and coconut flavor of Bacardi, and the sweetness is distracting. Nowhere near as flavorful. In fact, I pulled out my bottle of Parrot Bay and I would say it's about tied in terms of lacking flavor and having unnecessary sweetness. In a daiquiri, Blanco is still worse than Bacardi. The cocktails are the same burn but for less flavor. Verdict {rating}/10 Barceló Blanco was a real disappointment. Flavorless and sweet. Barceló Dorado came out a bit ahead. Not by much, we're still talking about mixers here, and just as Brugal Añejo falls short of Havana Club 3 for mixed drinks, so too does Barceló Dorado fall short of Brugal Añejo. It's a judgement call in terms of whether it's better than Bacardi gold.

I've been collecting little bottles of orange liqueurs for a while. Saw a 50mL of Cointreau and Grand Marnier, and of course I bought a whole bottle of Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao for Mai Tais. But then, when I got a sample of Clément Créole Shrubb, I knew that I had to do an experiment. Review Smell Definitely smells of orange, something spicy like cinnamon and vanilla, sweetness, and the grassy smell of agricole. It's like an orange spiced tequila. Taste The taste is pretty wild and unique. The underlying agricole rum is very interesting and suits this flavor profile. Spicy, sweet, fruity, and it's honestly not too grassy/briny, but there's some good depth and complexity here. It's hard to pick out any individual spice from the mix because it's all so subtle, but I really like the mix. It has this really nice finish that is floral and fruity. I also tried it in a Mai Tai. I actually took the opportunity to compare several different orange liqueurs, and Créole Shrubb won the contest for my favorite, barely edging out PF Dry Curacao and Grand Marnier. I hope to do this again when... I know a bit more about what I'm talking about. Verdict {rating}/10 It's hard to compare this rum to other rums, since it's more like a spiced rum or spirit drink. And in that regard, it might well be the best one that I have ever tried, just because it does it well for the task, which is to be a complex and flavorful mixer for when the recipe calls for an orange liqueur, such as a Mai Tai. I would not drink it neat, and its use is situational, but I can see it easily elevating cocktail recipes that call for basic orange-flavored liqueurs.

Whenever I try things at the NY rum club bottlesharing events, I always write all of my feelings down for each rum. That said, I usually only actually write reviews for the first few rums that I try. For one, I usually go for the ones that I am most excited about first. Also, I tend to be the most sober at the start, and by the end of the tasting, my notes start to be less and less... useful. For instance, towards the end of the April tasting, my notes for Perennia Caroni 27 Year from Raising Glasses were "Very fruity, contact cement, Gigabyte. It's a roller coaster and I am not tall enough to ride." But finally, I will occasionally taste a palate killer. After this sort of rum, I am basically no longer able to feel the subtler nuances of a rum, as it completely dominates my palate for a while. This is one such rum. > Note: It is aged 13 years in ex-bourbon, then finished for 4 years in 2nd fill French oak barrique. The say "we transferred this rum", so that implies the last 4 years were definitely in the UK. Unknown if any of the prior 13 years were in Guyana or also in the UK. Review Smell Overwhelming nose. The name said glue, and I definitely get that. Perhaps even contact cement. But then it opens up into fruity notes, something earthy like prunes or dried fruit, and finally the oak and vanilla. The smell is kind of sweet, perhaps molasses or brown sugar. Taste Of course I took a sip the way that it is, and it's overwhelming. Definitely begs for ice or water. Contact cement, intensely earthy, sour, and bitter. Completely overwhelming to my palate. It burns like a shot of 151 all the way down my throat. After adding a few drops of water, to what's left at the bottom of my cup, it opens up to something very dry and not nearly as fruity as the nose suggests, but back to familiar territory, the classic El Dorado flavors: prunes, raisins, those types of dried fruits. Someone brought some El Dorado PM/DHE, and I tried it right after, and it's not exactly the same, there's some difference, but it's not a large one, and I don't quite know how to articulate the difference. Both are in the same ballpark. Verdict {rating}/10 This rum is definitely complex and challenging. I hope to some day better appreciate it, and to someone who is really into high octane Demerara rums, this might be your 9/10. To me, it was a fun experience, and I am glad to have tried it, but if I had this in my liquor cabinet, it would sit for a while, hopefully waiting for a time that I can better appreciate it. It's good, perhaps even great, but kind of like a full strength Hampden rum, I just am overwhelmed and it's not something I would relax with, and the industrial and cement flavors just are kind of harsh and off-putting for me right now.

This is a bit of an interesting one. The only Panamanian rum that I have had is Ron Abuelo, and that's from Varela Hermanos. Another distillery in Panama is Las Cabras, with Don Pancho as the master distiller. I've heard a lot about them, but I have never had the chance to actually give his rum a try until now. > Note: It says it's aged 21 years in ex-bourbon. Everything online pours about how it's made in the Cuban style, but I could not find any evidence that they actually age and rectify it before aging it again, so I am going to assume that it's probably a marketing gimmick to appeal to Americans, for whom Cuban rum is this mysterious forbidden fruit. Review Smell Strong and rich, with notes of vanilla and oak, but also a surprisingly harsh hit of alcohol. For instance, Zacapa 23 and Ron Abuelo XII Two Oaks are similarly rich and oaky, but with less of a harsh alcohol hit. Taste A little more harsh and sour than I was expecting, but it's totally sippable. It's harsher than Zacapa 23, but knowing that Zacapa uses glycerin to smooth itself out, this is probably to be expected. Zacapa has more of a wine and honey flavor, which I quite enjoy, while Zafra 21, while also noticably sweet, has clearly never seen a wine cask, as it's more of the typical long-aged Spanish-style rum flavor. The finish is medium, and has the floral notes that I get a lot from Cuban rum and some of the better Dominican rums. Of course, HC Seleccion de Maestros is a lot more flavorful (and that's just Havana Club. Imo Ron Santiago de Cuba is even better). There's way more bold floral notes there that I feel immediately, while Zafra is more of a bold oak and vanilla that fades into these mild floral notes at the end. I would say that the rum it's most similar to is Ron Abuelo XII Two Oaks, as they both are quite sweet and start with a bold woody taste, and finish with mild floral notes, but I would say that the vanilla and oak flavor from Ron Abuelo is stronger, and is almost smoky. Verdict {rating}/10 At first I was worried if I had anything to compare Zafra 21 to, since I don't have any other super long aged Spanish-style rums, and honestly, the deep, rich, smoky, complex notes of El Dorado 21 just sort of blew it away. But interestingly, Zacapa 23, HC Seleccion de Maestros, and Ron Abuelo XII Two Oaks turned out to be very comparable. And Zafra 21 just sort of comes close to all of them, but just a bit short. It is not quite as rich in wine and honey flavor as Zacapa, it's not as floral as an actual Cuban rum, and it's not as oaky and vanilla-rich and smoky as Abuelo XII. But it's close. All of those are 6.5/10 rums, so before giving it a 6/10, I tried one last test: how does it compare to Havana Club 7Yr, which I gave a 6/10? Well, it is definitely smoother and oakier, and they share the same weird sourness, but Havana Club 7Yr just is a nicer, lighter, slightly more floral rum, so I feel confident in making it a tie. 6/10 it is.

I want to combo break from the Dominican Republic again, because I think I may have found a rum competing to be my favorite, again. I have two variants of Doctor Bird. The original one you can get anywhere, and the blend exclusive to The Inferno Room, a tiki bar in Indianapolis. > Note: It carries NAS, apparently it's aged in the US in ex-bourbon barrels (not in Jamaica?) and finished in PX sherry casks. Review Smell This thing is fantastic. You take the cap off, and the rum fills the room. Very strong pineapple, banana, sweet, fruity, tropical. Basically the same as the classic Doctor Bird, but even stronger! Makes sense, it's the same base rum, but this is higher proof. Taste It reminds me more of Stolen Rum Overproof (7 year aged HLCF iirc?) because of the higher proof and the more pronounced aging. But the base flavor is still very similar to Doctor Bird, just noticably amped up and with a sherry finish. I made myself several daiquiris. Doctor Bird, Inferno Room, Smith & Cross, and DOKTOK split base 1:1 with Diplo Planas as DOK tends to overwhelm. Well, maybe I am just becoming a dunderhead, but DOKTOK split with Planas was my favorite daiquiri of the bunch. But it was veeery close. Honestly I should have also split base for Inferno Room because it's challenging to drink a daiquiri that is 2 parts rum, 1 part lime, and 1 part syrup, when the rum is a 60% ABV funk bomb. But they are all delicious. I can't emphasize enough what a fantastic break this is from so much Dominican rum. I would put Smith & Cross and Doctor Bird tied for 2nd to DOKTOK in the daiquiri tasting, and honestly, I feel like I still need to find the right cocktail for Doctor Bird Inferno Room, because the sherry flavor doesn't really work quite as well in a daiquiri, even after compensating for the overwhelming ABV and funk. Verdict {rating}/10 I have very similar feelings as the original Doctor Bird, but of course, there's some key differences. It's higher ABV, which makes it harder to drink neat or in a daiquiri, so this rum is well and truly intended to be mixed deep like in a jungle bird. And also, it's a sherry finish, which I definitely think can work in some cases, but a daiquiri just might not be it. I tried what remains of it in a pepsi, and of course, I could barely taste the pepsi— it just takes over. I only ordered a sample of it, so unfortunately I don't have enough to try in a Jungle Bird, Mai Tai, Jet Pilot, etc. to see where it really fits in. As such, I am giving it somewhat of a soft 8/10 because I can see myself being convinced either way, but just the fact that I'd have to go to Indianapolis and pay $43 for a bottle sort of makes me think that I won't be trying more any time soon. I've heard some people comparing this one to Hampden Pagos (and that Pagos is also a bit of a weird one for Hampden).